A blog of the Greater Oklahoma City chapter of the United Nations Association of the USA
The name of this blog is taken from the preamble of the Charter of the United Nations (1945):
"We the Peoples of the United Nations, Determined...
to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small...."

Saturday, December 13, 2014

LGBT Rights are Human Rights

by Sharon Bishop-Baldwin

A 2014 Human Rights Award Winnervia Facebook

Friends, all of the accolades we receive are special, for different reasons, but today's award was meaningful because it acknowledges that LGBT rights are human rights.

When Mary and I got up to receive our award and make some comments, I noted that looking around the room, I saw black, white, Latino, Middle Eastern, Christian, Jew, Muslim, male, female, young and old. But after listening to all but one of the speeches (one more came after us), what really struck me were our similarities!

A Muslim speaker talked about having lawmakers propose and pass bills meant to curb his community's freedoms. A Latino speaker talked about bias in society because of differences (in his case a foreign accent). To a person, every speaker who went before us said some phrase or discussed some issue or idea that we ourselves have said about our own LGBT community -- from "Keep the faith" and "Be a voice for the voiceless" to talk of death threats and the work that remains to be done.

It was so meaningful to be in a room full of people who are fighting the same fights right alongside us, revealing how we're really so much the same.

“Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.”